My favorite movies of 1956 were made in the Soviet Union. This came as a surprise to me. For some reason, I associated the USSR with cold, empty art movies, but these aren’t. They’re like Hollywood movies from an alternate universe, just as ambitious, but more sentimental. I hope this Khrushchev guy stays around for a while:

The best movies of 1955, or at least those that had an opening that was interesting enough for me not to immediately hit the fast-forward button. I’ve collected the best scene from each movie, plus some amusingly bad ones, in this playlist.

1952 was either one of the worst years in movie history, or I’ve been unusually hard to satisfy lately. Or perhaps it’s that it offered little new, and this marathon is above all about newness. I’ll watch anything as long as it’s interesting, and what makes it interesting is that I don’t quite know where to place it. Almost everything from 1952 fits neatly into existing categories, adding nothing of their own, and what’s left is this meagre picking:

From someone who has mostly watched movies from the 1920′s, 30′s and 40′s for the last two years, it may come as a surprise to hear that I don’t particularly like old movies. I just don’t like them less than new movies, and when you’re trying to uncover All the Good Movies Ever Made, you have to start somewhere. But even the best of the good Golden Age Hollywood movies can be a bit unimaginative and soft around the edges.

That’s why I love the two new kinds of movies of the early 50′s: Intelligent, even angry, “message” movies, and science fiction movies. I’ve mostly heard bad things about 1950′s science fiction, but the only thing that is cheesy about the 1951 sci-fi movies are the effects. Otherwise they’re everything I missed in the 40′s.

With a project like this movie marathon, motivation varies from week to week. It’s hard to find the balance between giving 300 movies each a chance to prove itself, and also having fun. But – when you end up with movies like the ones below, motivation is not a problem.

What an awful year in movies that was, especially for Hollywood, but the ‘49 movies that are good, are real good, and unique in a way earlier movies weren’t. The end of the “golden age” was the end of one size fits all movies, and the beginning of “let’s try anything that could possibly draw some viewers away from television”.